Case library / Sexual boundaries
Four employers acted on him before the Board ever did
In short
Registration surrendered by stipulation; he represented himself throughout. He may not petition for reinstatement and ma
$33,704A 2010 suspension, a 2017 forced resignation, a 2020 termination and a 2021 improvement plan — all internal, none reported.
It shows how long a pattern can run inside employer HR processes before a single Board case gathers eleven years of it into one accusation.
What happened
The respondent was registered as an associate marriage and family therapist in July 2015; his registration was canceled in July 2021 and was not eligible for renewal. The accusation gathered eleven years of conduct across four employers. At a counseling and education institute where he worked from 2010 to 2017, a complaint arrived in October 2010 that he had hugged a client in a way that made her uncomfortable and had offered to take her shopping and buy clothes for her children. He was suspended from providing therapy, required to enter his own therapy, to complete a law and ethics course, and to write a paper on his behavior. He was told that his “personal need to comfort affected [his] ability to implement clear limits and boundaries that ensure client safety.” He was reinstated in 2012 at his own request.
In May 2017 a client of that same institute reported that during an in-home counseling session he asked her how often she felt aroused and how often she used a sex toy, called her “guapa,” and asked her to walk him to the door, where he hugged her. He was placed on probationary status with no client contact and reduced to part time; he resigned that June and his employment was recorded as terminated for “high-risk behavior and poor judgment.” At a youth counseling agency between 2017 and 2019 he was terminated over incorrect documentation and inappropriate billing; after he left, female staff complained he had made comments about their buttocks.
From 2019 to 2020 he worked at a counseling agency serving domestic violence victims. In August 2019 a client complained that he asked inappropriate questions and texted her after a session to ask how many times she and her husband were intimate; she asked for a female therapist. In October 2019 a client seeking help with trauma from years of domestic violence attended a session while her young son waited outside for his own appointment. He locked the door, asked about her sex life, massaged her shoulders, asked her to close her eyes and do a breathing exercise, then rubbed and groped her breasts, squeezing them twice, and said, “you aren’t going to report me, right?” She developed severe head pressure and stress requiring a doctor’s care, and said she was afraid of his power to report her as a bad mother and of losing custody of her son. A third client complained in January 2020 that he had “bombarded” her with questions about her past and current sex life. He was terminated that May.
At a substance abuse treatment center in 2021 he treated a client with a history of family abuse and of sexual abuse at a residential treatment center. She reported that he became increasingly physical over time, including hugging her behind the door. On June 4, 2021 he dimmed the lights, asked her to remove her mask by telling her she should not hide her beautiful face, removed his own, kissed her on the mouth, rubbed his body against hers, and told her to stand against the door in case someone tried to enter. She reported it and asked for a female therapist. The employer put him on a performance improvement plan about patient and clinician boundaries, required trainings in ethical decision-making, and moved him to a different site.
The Board also charged him with dishonesty for what he said during the investigation: he gave a Division of Investigation investigator a false account of the terms of his termination, denied prior employer probation and reprimands, and blamed his clients for raising sexual topics and making him uncomfortable.
What it was charged as
Any act of sexual abuse, misconduct, or relations with a patient or client is unprofessional conduct and grounds for discipline for anyone licensed under the healing arts division.
Sexual relations with a client or with a former client within two years of termination, soliciting sexual relations, or committing an act of sexual abuse or sexual misconduct with a client. Intercourse is not required.
Gross negligence or incompetence — pleaded here as the abuse of power itself: dissuading clients from reporting, prioritizing his needs over theirs, and entering a dual relationship.
Intentionally or recklessly causing physical or emotional harm to a client.
A dishonest, corrupt, or fraudulent act — charged for his statements to the Board’s investigator, not for the underlying conduct.
Defines sexual exploitation by a psychotherapist, and defines “sexual contact” as intercourse or the touching of an intimate part for sexual arousal, gratification, or abuse.
The outcome
Registration surrendered by stipulation; he represented himself throughout. He may not petition for reinstatement and may reapply only after three years as a new applicant, with every charge deemed admitted against any future application to this Board or to the Board of Psychology.
$33,704ordered in cost recovery under B&P §125.3What the rule actually says
Sections 726 and 4982(k) reach a great deal short of intercourse. Soliciting sexual relations, sexual abuse, and sexual misconduct all count, and the conduct that builds toward them is the ordinary subject matter of these cases: hugging, massaging shoulders, locking a door, dimming lights, sexual-history questions with no treatment purpose, personal texts after hours. The second rule here is jurisdictional. An employer’s response — a suspension, a required ethics course, a performance improvement plan, a transfer to another site, even a termination — resolves an employment problem and nothing more. It does not discharge the Board’s interest, it does not restart anyone’s clock, and under §4990.33 it does not matter that the registration has since lapsed or been canceled.
Discussion
Analysis, not part of the decision
What is unusual is not the conduct but the timeline. Four employers documented boundary problems and four responded internally: a suspension with mandated therapy, a law and ethics course, and a reflective paper in 2010; probationary status and a forced resignation in 2017; termination in 2020; a performance improvement plan, boundary trainings, and a site transfer in 2021. Each employer solved its own problem. He kept working, and the next employer started the clock again with no visibility into the last one. The Board’s file was assembled only after the fact, out of records those employers had kept all along.
Read the First Cause carefully. It is pleaded as sexual contact under §726(a) and §4982(k), but most of the underlying facts are touching, questioning, and texting. That is not a drafting stretch: §4982(k) reaches solicitation and “sexual misconduct,” and does not require intercourse. The clinical setting is what gives the conduct its weight. Two of these clients were in treatment for domestic violence and sexual abuse, and the accusation says in terms that his abuse of power “mirrors the coercive and controlling aspect of a domestic violence perpetrator” — the harm was not incidental to the treatment, it reproduced the thing being treated.
The Fourth Cause is the sleeper. Dishonesty under §4982(j) was charged not for the conduct with clients but for what he told the investigator: a false account of how a job ended, a denial of prior employer discipline, and an account blaming clients for raising sexual topics. What you say during an investigation is itself chargeable, and it can stand even if the underlying allegations are contested. He was self-represented for the whole proceeding.
The disposition also teaches something. His registration had already been canceled in July 2021 and could not be renewed — there was, in a practical sense, nothing left to take. Sections 118(b) and 4990.33 exist so that this does not end the matter: the surrender is what puts the discipline on the permanent record, makes every charge admitted against any future application, and attaches $33,704 in costs that must be paid before any new registration or license can issue.
Where insurance reaches, and where it does not
Sexual misconduct is the one allegation every California professional liability program treats differently: it is defense-only, capped, and never indemnified, because intentional and criminal acts are excluded from all of them. So the money question in a case like this is not what a policy would pay a client — it would pay nothing — but whether the board-defense benefit is available at all, and how early. The dishonesty count is the practical argument for calling your carrier before you speak to an investigator: statements made in an interview became an independent cause for discipline here, and that is exactly the point at which represented and unrepresented respondents diverge.
What would have changed it
- Treat a client’s request to switch to a therapist of a different gender as a clinical event: document it, escalate it, and find out what prompted it.
- Write your contact rules into the intake — who initiates, through what channel, about what — and put every text into the record.
- If an employer offers you a boundary-related improvement plan instead of a report, get independent advice on whether the underlying facts are separately reportable before you sign it.
Questions
For a law and ethics seminar, or for yourself
- Four employers documented boundary complaints and none of them reported to the Board. Where in California law does an obligation to report a therapist’s conduct sit, who actually holds it, and what should a clinical director do at the first complaint of this kind?
- The 2010 remediation was personal therapy, a law and ethics course, and a written paper about the incident. On what evidence, if any, should a program conclude that remediation of a boundary problem has worked well enough to restore client contact?
- The accusation treats his statements to the investigator as an independent dishonest act. How should a therapist under investigation describe a prior termination truthfully without waiving defenses — and what does that imply about answering an investigator before speaking to counsel?
Source. This write-up is drawn from the signed public decision in the case number above. Names, cities and employers have been removed — why. To pull the original, open the Board's quarterly newsletter archive, find the issue covering March 9, 2023, and match the case number in the Formal Disciplinary Actions section. Not legal advice.
